Page 48 of Xavier

Stressing about him leaving when I should be savoring what little time left I had was only going to make my moods worse and cause further issues that didn’t need to be there in the first place. Quinn was right about it all—I was getting too up in my head about things that shouldn’t even matter at this point.

What I really needed to be focusing on was soaking up as much time with my boyfriend as possible until he had to go home.

Xavier drifted back from our kiss, his fingers moving from my cheek to trail down my forehead and over my jaw. His treatment of me, like I was some kind of precious piece of ancient pottery, would never cease to get my heart fluttering.

“Talk to me.” His voice was soft.

“I miss you,” was all I could think to say back. Because at the end of it all, that was the truth. I missed him even when he was here with me.

His expression softened. “I miss you, too, Gage.”

We had a week together.

A whole damn week.

Spending it on dreading the inevitable goodbye was only going to leave me feeling regretful in the end. Xavier would be back; he wasn’t leaving me forever no matter what that traitorous voice inside of my head told me.

Regardless of him not wanting to marry me, or not spending Christmas with me, we still had each other. Our bond had been forged in brotherhood during the chopper crash, long before we were officially dating. That wasn’t something that could easily be wiped away no matter the circumstances.

Wrapping my limbs around him, I breathed in his woodsy scent and let my eyes close.

I needed to be grateful for what I had before I ended up chasing it away.

CHAPTER 20

Xavier

Two daysafter Kate’s phone call, Dexter and I found ourselves at LSU’s botanical gardens.

The place was absolutely beautiful and only an eight-minute drive from the campus. Arriving at the facility right after lunch, there were already plenty of people milling about in the front area leading into the main entrance.

While waiting in line to get in, we people-watched at the kids with their families running around on the front lawn while parents wrestled bracelet tickets onto their wrists. Simple things like this were the unexpectedly fun parts about coming to a new city.

We’d decided to start off working our way to the back of the property and ending at the front, leaving the flower gardens for last, since that’s where most of the tourists that were around for the season were convening.

A good bout of rain had cut the mugginess in the air down by about half, leaving us to walk through the trail in a pleasant sixty-five degrees and sunny. The boardwalk leading back to the wetlands was surrounded by tall trees on either side of it, shading us under a nice canopy from the hot sun above.

Dexter had a map of the entire site in his hands that he stared down at while we walked side-by-side. He’d already marked off a few spots that I took as him wanting to stop by our way down, judging by the stars next to them.

This entire trip, I’d been impressed with his meticulous nature. Not being around for most of his formidable school years had put me at a disadvantage for knowing a key part of my son’s life that led him into getting into LSU to begin with.

Seeing him like this was a nice peek into a part of what I’d missed for all of those years he’d moved through school.

“You know, if you end up going to LSU, you’ll be able to walk here whenever you want.” With this place being as large as it was, I doubted we were going to get the full experience of everything on just today alone.

There was a bit of regret in me for not having researched LSU as soon as Dexter had told me about his offer.

I’d been wary to send him off to a major city in the south to begin with, the reputation of the state clouding my own judgment and keeping me from actually being as supportive as I could’ve been. Don’t get me wrong, I was damn happy he’d gotten accepted to a college early, regardless of where it was located even if being gay in the south had always sounded like a death sentence to me. One that would end in ostracisation or worse.

The more I saw of Baton Rouge, the more I was beginning to understand why Gage wasn’t willing to leave it behind and why Dexter was considering coming here in the first place. The culture was rich, the people were hospitable, and there was a ton of stuff to do outside of campus life.

Outside of the same prejudices we’d find in parts of California, Baton Rouge wasn’t abnormally terrible on that scale. Not enough for me to spend the rest of this week trying to convince Dexter to look elsewhere for school options.

“Yeah, I was thinking that.” He folded up the map into a neat square to stick into his pocket. “I’m not really that informed on agriculture. But if I ever wanted to go into a program like that, LSU obviously has a good one.”

“I’ll say.” If these gardens were anything to go by, my kid would be opening up his own damn farm by the end of his Bachelor’s. “How are you liking having the twins around? They’re not giving you too much trouble, are they?”

Dexter shook his head. “They’re nice. I like them. It’s kind of funny watching them and Gage bicker. I get an up close personal look into what it would’ve been like if I had a sibling.”

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